On cloud computing

So, back to your regular programming here at Dark of Days, the world's #1 aggregator of black coffee and morphine-induced ranting and raving.

Cloud computing.  Grr.  How I hate the name.  It stinks of the usual business-stroke-sales-and-marketing bullshit bingo buzzwords.  Like the word "convergence".  Or "seamless integration".  It sounds like just another phrase you slap onto a product to get it off the shelves quicker.  The funny thing is, it isn't.

Ten years ago, cloud computing existed under a different name.  It was used in computer-science courses at universities the world over, and in small businesses, and on a little Web site called SourceForge.  Back then, cloud computing was called "real-time collaboration".  Now, not many readers of this site know about a little programme called CVS; it was mainly used in higher education and in business, and it is still used mainly in those circles.

CVS was a small programme that ran on the command line.  No graphic elements whatever.  Its use is best explained by the following scenario: Alice, Robert, Thomas, Richard, and Henry are collaborating to author a book.  Alice is the proof-reader and checks the manuscript once a month for spelling errors; Robert is the typesetter and makes sure the manuscript is in appropriate style to be published, checking in five minutes every day; Thomas writes nine-to-five, Monday to Friday; Richard writes at odd times, including on weekends; and Henry writes every day on evenings.

How can the manuscript of the book be appropriately managed?  eMail would be very impractical; each person would need to keep a copy on their machines, periodically giving it to one person to reconcile with the others.  If that person would prove to be irresponsible, there goes the manuscript.  The answer is in what is called "cloud computing" today: a virtual whiteboard, upon which many can write.  CVS is a system that does just that: it collects different people's versions of what they feel a document should be, and if two people submit the same file at the same time, CVS has an elaborate system of checks and balances to make sure that nothing becomes corrupted.

Another example of cloud computing is what was then called "simultaneous sign-in"; one username and password would log in to a large number of Web services at the same time.  The most prolific of such services was Microsoft Passport, a service known by its users as "MSN".  One password would sign in to MSN Messenger and a whole host of other services; today, this same thing is called "Google Accounts" and operates Blogger, Google+, gMail, Google Docs, and many other such services.

Yet in the 1990s, such services were not much used; this just further adds to my theory that some developments in computer history must be made before or after others.